Velvetyne opens typography workshop and worldwide submission for ampersand designs

French open source type foundry Velvetyne is holding an ampersand workshop from 5–7 May at Le Générale, in collaboration with -zeug publishers. Despite the workshop being based in France, the type foundry has also opened a worldwide submission for ampersand designs to publish.

The event is “a great and festive international type aficionados meeting,” says Velvetyne. The workshop is free and “will draw, digitise, classify, sort and free publish produced glyphs”. Outside of the event, entries into the global call for ampersand submissions will be shared “into a free open source and international ampersand online library”.

“Our goal is to collect 288 contemporary ampersands to be published in a book by -zeug publishers,” explains the type foundry. The event is “coinciding with the French translation of Jan Tschichold’s book Formenwandlungden der Et-Zeichen,” and is a weekend to celebrate Jean Porte-Latine, the “patron saint of typographers, printers and winemakers”. The end results will be available as a companion to Jan Tschichold’s translation published in September, alongside an open source font by Velvetyne.

The program for the event begins 5 May at 8pm with a workshop presentation and ampersand discussion. The full day begins on 6 May with ampersand production in the morning concluding in “happy type designers, wine, food, and ampersands here and there”. The second day will continue with designing ampersands, resulting in a show in the evening.

“This meeting will be an occasion to meet each other and pay homage to our patron saint mates winemakers…a Saturday night to enjoy one drink or more, share dinner and celebrate typography.”